Courfeyrac, Marius's friend

Courfeyrac, Marius's friend, appears briefly among the students who notice a man and a young woman repeatedly occupying the same bench in the Pépinière. His part in the episode is small but consequential: a passing judgment becomes a shared nickname, giving the otherwise unknown pair the identities by which Marius and the students refer to them.

Identity and Setting

Courfeyrac belongs to a group of five or six students who sometimes walk along the Pépinière. Some come after classes; others, including Courfeyrac, arrive after playing billiards. Their attention turns to the man and young woman, whom Marius encounters there at much the same time on repeated walks.

His Observation of the Pair

Courfeyrac watches the pair for a while, but decides that the young woman is ugly and carefully keeps away from them. The two seem to avoid other people’s eyes, a manner that has already attracted the students’ notice. Courfeyrac does not approach or exchange greetings; his response is to withdraw and make a joke of what he has observed.

The Nicknames and Their Effect

Noticing the young woman’s black dress and the older man’s white hair, Courfeyrac calls her Mlle Lanoire and him M. Leblanc. He leaves the pair with these labels as he makes his exit, likened to a Parthian retreat. Since nobody knows their actual names, the students adopt his invention: they refer to the man as M. Leblanc at his bench. Marius, finding the name convenient, uses it too.

The episode defines Courfeyrac through brisk social observation rather than a sustained encounter. His nickname reduces two elusive strangers to visible features, but it also supplies the group with a common way to speak about them. A moment of mockery thus shapes the language through which Marius recognizes the pair on his recurring walks.